Roué

Upward Heroic Motive (Exit Stencil Recordings)

All out-of-towners visiting for this weekend's Cleveland Music Festival, take note: One of the city's most promising bands that you won't see at the fest is Roué, the city's certified specialist in tension-and-release indie rock. The group's live-wire debut, 2003's Fuckin for the Future, was enough to give you goose bumps. And the new Upward Heroic Motive will make your hair stand on end. In a good way.

Roué establishes pensive moods and shatters them -- at length. The gloriously discordant "All About Time" kicks off the album, gushing with a high-register freakout worthy of Sonic Youth or Fugazi. Guitarist Jeff Harris is manic by disc's end, closing "Static Attraction" as if he's dismantling his six-string with a sledgehammer and power drill. Howling and swaggering, singer-guitarist Justin Coulter works in spastic tandem, jerking his whammy bar like it's triggering an escape hatch from some burning vehicle. Don't leave town without a copy of this disc. And, if you're a local, see them while you can.